2012-11-20

The countless millions of people who are regular readers of
this blog will no doubt remember one of the great entries of 2011, namely the
one where nine beers were fighting for glory by tempting the palates of five
lucky beer tasters assembled for the occasion in my flat here in Konstanz. This
was so much fun that when two beer-loving mates from Norway came to visit a
couple of weeks ago, I stocked up again for a repeat session, albeit with a
slightly different selection this time.

To ensure some continuity, two of the beers from last time
were allowed back in, namely the Meckatzer Weiss-Gold (the winner from 2011)
and Wernesgrüner Pils (5th). The methodology was the
same: I dressed up the beer bottles (all half-litres) in German newspapers
and opened them before placing them randomly in the fridge. Then, one of my
friends who hadn’t seen any of this would pick a beer randomly and pour it into
three anonymous glasses. We then proceeded to sniff, drink and score them one by one
whilst the empties were placed along a wall in the order in which they were
served. Finally, once all were empty, we ceremoniously disrobed the bottles to reveal which beer was which.

The selection this time was based around golden-coloured beers
of various types, namely two Pilsners (one of which was cheap, the other ridiculously
cheap), three Octoberfest-style beers, two Helles, one Bock and last, but not least, a very
expensive bottle imported from Britain, labelled “VSOP”, which I believe is short for "Very Sour Old Piss", but since it tasted rather good it is possible that I may be wrong there. Incidentally, just to illustrate the price range we're talking about: I could have bought about
15 bottles of the cheapest beer for the same price.

The results certainly showed that price is not necessarily
proportional to taste or quality. Our two favourites were the cheap and the
even cheaper Pilsners, whereas the VSOP didn’t quite make it to the throne. A note to British readers out there: the "p" stands for "points" and not the price of the beer in pence (though I wish it was). The results:

1)Wernesgrüner Pils (25p)

2)Ratskrone Pils (24p)

3)Pedigree VSOP (21p)

3)Schussenrieder Helles (21p)

5)Andechs Bock (19p)

6)Augustiner Octoberfest (18p)

7)Meckatzer Weiss-Gold (17p)

7)Maiser Heinrich Urstoff (17p)

9)Augustiner Edelstoff (8p)

The podium! And the others. And the poor beer that nobody likes.

The unobservant reader has by now no doubt failed to notice
that last year’s winner didn’t do quite as well this year – it finished way
down in 7th place. There could, of course, be any number of reasons
for this, such as coincidence and Act of Gambrinus. However, I strongly believe that all the non-winning
German breweries have taken note of the results last year and worked very hard
to improve their brews, whereas the winner last year may have been a little complacent,
resting on the hoppy laurels and basking in the malty glory for a bit too long.
I expect greater things from everyone next year.

It should also be noted that this event took place on a
Friday when the weather was unusually warm, so perhaps the Pilsners had a
little advantage there. Furthermore, since the beers were served from the
fridge at the same, cold temperature, the beers that should ideally be served
warmer (especially the bock and the VSOP) probably had a disadvantage. It must
also be admitted that two of the three tasters were already blind drunk since
they had been following the Norwegian tradition of knocking back all alcoholic beverages within earshot since
leaving Norway. So essentially, this turned out to be a giant excuse
to get drunk and had nothing to do with a proper beer tasting session. Oh well,
never mind.

It’s good fun though, drinking beer and pretending you know
something about it. Furthermore, judging something that cannot defend itself in other ways
than by losing its head gives you a sense of power. Moah-hah-hah!

2012-11-07

It’s been an inspiring few weeks for beer lovers. Whenever I’ve
turned on the TV I don’t have (which, to be fair, wasn’t that often), read a
newspaper or surfed the internet, I’ve been completely swamped by reports pouring in from
a big country far, far away. The citizens of this country have, according to a Japanese news report
I stumbled upon, just had a big erection. This sounds intriguing in its own
right, but what I found even more interesting was images of crowds tens of
thousands strong chanting “four more beers” whilst waving posters with logos
for what I presume must have been various local breweries. I find such footage very
stirring, and in my emotionally hoisted state I found myself drawn to my
fridge. The rest is, as they say, a history I intend to share with anyone who
can be bothered to read on.

Note that even the beer glass is right

The first beer I could lay my grubby mitts on was a fairly
local one, in fact one that a colleague of my wife very kindly gave me a few
weeks ago: a “Schwarzes Wäldle” brewed by Lammbrauerei from Weilheim, a small
village tucked away behind some other equally obscure villages in the
south-west of Germany. According to the Internet, this village has, together
with its neighbouring village of Rietheim, a grand total of 2637 inhabitants –
and one brewery making about 800,000 litres of beer per year. This corresponds
to about one litre of beer per day per inhabitant, which sounds about right. I
have tried both the pilsner and the “Schwarzes” (black beer, though it's not that black as you can see from the picture above) from this brewery,
and in keeping with the output from almost all such small breweries around
Germany, the beers are very good without being truly memorable.

A couple of weeks earlier, my wife and I decided to celebrate
the unexpected arrival of winter by running a race in southern Bavaria, not far from
Munich. After pounding through about 7km of mud with the snow whipping around
our whiskers, it was a great relief to discover that the neighbouring hamlet,
which boasted a total of 23 houses, had a very nice little brewery called Rössle-Bräu, with a pub
attached. Therefore, after collecting a terrific toothbrush
as the race prize, we made a beeline for the bar and begged for beer. The lady
behind the bar obligingly started to pour me one, but then thoughtfully decided
to change the barrel, which meant that I had the privilege, for the first time
in my life, to drink the very first beer drawn from a completely fresh cask brewed
less than 20 metres away from where I was sitting. Needless to say, this was a special occasion, and the
beer did not disappoint: like all good Bavarian house beers it was
copper-coloured, malty and beautifully balanced on the palate.

A copper-coloured blogger and ditto beer

The next day brought the opportunity to visit another two
local breweries. First up was the Lövenbräu in Bad Wörishofen, a little spa
town close, but not too close, to the motorway that goes through Germany. The
brewery was classic Bavarian, essentially a brewpub except that unlike its many
modern counterparts it’s been brewing for more than 100 years, serving the local
population with tasty brews throughout this turbulent time in European history.
I had the Export, which again was wonderfully fresh and malty even though it
was just after 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning.

Finally, we made a brief stop at the Storchenbräu in
Pfaffenhausen, which is situated conveniently a little further from the
motorway. Sadly, the brewery pub had closed there, so we had to find the
nearest outlet that served their beer, which was a whopping 120 metres away.
They actually had a very good black beer, which I tried, but since I’ve
forgotten what was nice about it I shan’t try to describe its lovely roasted
coffee and dark chocolate notes.

No prizes for guessing what "storch" means

All in all, these four breweries illustrate very nicely what
makes Germany such a great country to drink in. Most breweries are small,
traditional, family-owned enterprises that serve up very good beer for the
local population, and are happy to just do what they’ve been doing for hundreds
of years without desperately needing to expand to foreign markets or employ
fancy marketing tricks to appeal to new customer groups. Don’t get me wrong, I
am all for innovation and new ideas when it comes to beer, but to balance this
out it’s also great to have these old breweries where the only change happens
every 30 years or so when the next generation takes over.

Anyway, I just heard someone say “oh bummer” on the radio,
so perhaps this erection is finally over. Someone mentioned that it’s been the
longest and most expensive one in history, so I hope it was worth it. Speaking
for myself, the beers I had were certainly worth their malt and my time, and I look forward
to yet another four more beers very soon. In the meantime, drink smart and have
fun!

2012-10-02

In my last blog post, I had a little go at the lack of
German beer culture and the fact that whilst most people may regard the
Oktoberfest in Munich as a beer festival, this is exactly what it emphatically
is not. It is a festival of fun and drunkenness fuelled by beer, as I
experienced myself last week together with three of my best friends from Norway. Since I survided to tell the tale, even if I can't remember all of it, I will try to give you an impression of what it was like to drink part in the mayhem.

Although the Oktoberfest in Munich has spawned countless
copycat events around the world, the original remains by far the biggest, the
maddest and the most frustrating/fun party in the world. The festival area,
known locally as the “Wies’n”, is massive and so are the 15 or so festival
“tents”, each of which can keep several thousand drinkers dry, warm and
lubricated. Arriving on the Saturday when the event opened, we were immediately
struck by two things: rain, and the overwhelming number of people trying to get
into one of these tents. There where queues everywhere, though none of them
seemed to lead anywhere, at least not somewhere dry, warm and beery. In the
end, all four of us tried to find some shelter under a disintegrating umbrella
and a piece of wood, and before anyone could say “brrrr” a waiter came over and
offered us a litre glass of ice-cold beer each, as long as we were prepared to
fork out almost 10 euros for each of them – ridiculously expensive by German
standards, but still a bargain seen with our blue-ish Norwegian eyes. Any
sensible person would have left the area and headed for an uncrowded and cozy
bar somewhere else, but the Oktoberfest is not the place for such clever
thoughts so we gratefully accepted and started drinking.

The entrance to the Wies'n

This was hardly an auspicious start to the fun, so things
could only improve. Unfortunately, they didn’t. We had another litre, got lost,
lost each other, discovered that mobile phones don't necessarily work all the time, accidentally found each other again, drank too many wheat beers whilst
still being rained on and, finally, gave up and left. At no point did we even
get a sniff of being inside one of these hallowed tents. Rejected and wet, we
cursed in several languages and headed for the suburbs where we successfully
located both our hotel and a nice brewery.

We hadn’t travelled for hundreds and thousands of kilometres
to give up so easily, though, so the next day we turned up bright and early at
10am, expecting to yet again be rejected at the door. However, to our immense
surprise we found that not only were we allowed in, we also found a table
without any problems. With such startling early success, we decided to simply
settle down for the day – and finally, the spirit of the Oktoberfest descended
upon us. One litre was magically replaced by another as soon as it had
mysteriously disappeared, we were joined by one jolly crowd of people after
another, we made several sets of lifelong friends that were immediately
forgotten when they left, and in the end we got thrown out for tipping the waitress
too much. Well, that’s the only thing we could remember doing wrong, anyway.

Opening parade - with one of the "tents" in the background

The tent we were in was the amusingly fish-themed tent known
as “Fischer Vroni”, and the beer we enjoyed was from the only remaining
independent, privately owned brewery in Munich, namely Augustiner. The beer was
good, both in terms of taste and in terms of generating Gemütlichkeit – a
German word that encapsulates nicely the feeling of immense happiness combined
with an urge to sing jolly songs in German and dance on the benches together
with a few thousand newly found friends of all ages. Generally, Oktoberfest
beer is quite strong – just shy of 6% is the norm –and quite malty. Naturally,
the breweries put emphasis on drinkability, so the taste isn’t exactly
memorable, but it certainly isn’t bland either.

Now having been to the Oktoberfest twice, I consider
myself somewhat of a veteran. I will therefore issue the following survival
tips. First and foremost, do not bother turning up on the opening day of the
festival unless you have tremendous amounts of luck or a very cunning plan
indeed. Instead, aim for a weekday or at least a Sunday, and get there early –
unless you prefer rollercoasters to beer, it is best to be inside one of the
tents. Once at a table, have a beer or five, sing along even if you don’t know
the songs and make some friends. You won’t regret it, at least not until you
try to leave and find that your muscles for some strange reason don’t work the
way they usually do anymore. In fact, it is not a bad idea to leave a bit
before closing time anyway, since the crowds tend to thin out a bit towards the
end, leaving only those who are too drunk to realize that they should have left long ago.

In conclusion – unless you hate beer or people or both, you
should probably try the Oktoberfest at least once. I realize it’s not everyone’s
pint of beer, but one of the lasting impressions is just how many different
nationalities and age groups find their way to this event. It is not unusual to
see young people drinking beer with their grandparents, or Japanese tourists
dancing on the benches with Australians whilst singing German drinking songs. So
head for Munich, it’s still a few days left of this year’s festival and just over 50 weeks until the next one. Have a great
time!

2012-08-26

Last night I went to a party here in Germany where most of
the people were around 30 years old, in other words a year or two younger than
I am. It was great fun – everyone was eating, drinking, chatting and dancing and
the mood was relaxed and friendly. All in all very civilised, except for one
thing: the beer selection.

It is quite common for the person hosting a party in Germany
to also provide drinks – typically wine, a bit of bubbly, beer and various soft
drinks. The worrying thing is that young Germans, despite being brought up with
some of the best beer and greatest beer traditions in the world, seem to regard
beer as just ordinary plonk, to be bought in bulk and required only to taste as
little or as awful as possible. Quite often, the beer of choice is Beck’s, a
beer which originates from Bremen in the far north of Germany, but which
nowadays is owned by the world’s biggest brewing behemoth, namely AB InBev, or
whatever they’re called this month after the latest round of mergers and
acquisitions.

Beck’s is well-known for its pilsner, which is sold worldwide in
small green bottles at ridiculous prices, but in Germany Beck’s also sells
numerous other beer concoctions, including Beck’s Gold which is Germany’s
attempt to emulate the tasteless big-selling brands from the USA, and some
diabolical mixtures such as Beck’s Lime. The latter tastes so awful I wouldn’t
even want to flush it down my toilet, since I think my toilet deserves better.

This saddens me a little bit. Germans are very conscious
about environmental issues, and are in general a very illuminated lot who ought
to know better. There are approximately 834 breweries in Germany that are
closer to Konstanz than Beck’s, and although not all of these beers can easily
be bought at the local supermarket, there are a few good local ones that are
readily available. Why, then, is Beck’s so bloody popular down here in the
south despite having travelled the best part of 1000km to get here?

I think the answer is twofold: first, there’s the ever-important
marketing aspect and second, there’s the fact that despite Germany’s strong
beer traditions there’s a distinct lack of beer culture, at least in this
particular part of Germany. Beer remains an integral part of daily life here,
but it’s a bit like a staple such as milk or bread – you buy a crate of beers
which taste like beer and you drink it without thinking much about its taste
and aroma, nor its heritage or whether it comes from a local family-run brewery
or a big industrial plant outside Düsseldorf.

A typical local brewery making excellent beers

This is also reflected in the fact that Germany has a
strange lack of beer festivals and associations that concern themselves with
the preservation of beer traditions and styles. In Britain, for example,
there’s the national CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) group with more than 130,000
members which has been phenomenally successful in first saving and then steadily
increasing the popularity of the traditional British ales. CAMRA also runs the Great
British Beer Festival as well as hundreds of local beer festivals where the
focus is to showcase the range and variety of British beer on a local and
national level. Germany, on the other hand, has the Octoberfest – certainly the
most famous and biggest event in the world that is associated with beer. However,
the focus is not the beer itself, but the drinking of it whilst slapping your
thighs and singing drunken songs together with about five thousand other people
in an enormous tent. In fact, only the six big traditional Munich breweries
(three of which have merged anyway) are allowed to sell their beer at the
festival, and they all taste more or less the same. It can be great fun to take
part in this, but it is not a beer festival.

So what’s the conclusion? Germans are, I think, a little
complacent. They still have a phenomenal variety of interesting beers and some
of the best breweries in the world, but my impression is that this is just
taken for granted. Meanwhile, many medium-sized local breweries that for
centuries have served their local villages, towns and cities are giving up
because of increasing costs and decreasing sales – not least, I think, because
young Germans buy the trendy beer brands with added lime or grapefruit rather
than the boring, local beers that their parents used to buy before they started
drinking wine instead.

Founded in 1793, the Hirschenbrauerei serves just one tiny village, but for how long?

There is hope, though. Just like elsewhere in the world, new
micro-breweries are opening up and starting to brew tasty and interesting beers,
some even trying to resuscitate or improve traditional recipes. Sadly, there
are none of these near me yet, so until one opens (or I open one myself) I will
seek out the best local beers and bring them with me to parties, even if other
people think I’m the biggest weirdo south of the Rhine for doing so. Well, I’m
Norwegian, I’m weird, and I don’t care. At least I can enjoy a beer full of
flavour and aroma, and perhaps even spark some interest amongst the other
partygoers who notice my pleasurable slurps andaccompanying smile while they try to force down some god-awful mixture of beer,
gunk and cauliflower invented by the marketing people in Bremen.

That’s it for now. Until next time, drink the local stuff.
It might be good. Prost!

2012-06-04

Germany is a great place to drink beer. First, there’s an
insane number of breweries to try, second, the beer is really cheap and third,
the beer is really good. However, the level of insanity reaches really crazy
proportions when you go to Bavaria. There, the number of breweries per square
inch is higher than anywhere in the world, the beer is cheaper and it’s also even
better than in the rest of Germany. Then, just when you thought things couldn’t
possibly get any better, you may be lucky enough to stumble upon this slightly
obscure part of Bavaria called Franconia. Yes, you guessed it – the density of
breweries gets even higher, the beer gets even better and the prices, for some bizarre
reason, are so low that you feel dizzy. Put simply, it’s the beer drinker’s
heaven on Earth.

Centred on the beautiful city of Bamberg, itself sporting no
less than 9 breweries that work tirelessly to quench the thirst of the 70,000
or so inhabitants, the region has more than 200 breweries that invariably brew
really high quality beer. Add this to the fact that the region is very picturesque
and easy to get around on the beer lover’s best mode of transport, namely the
bike, and you have a great recipe for a very long holiday.

Sadly, I have not had the opportunity to go there for
several years now, so I was extremely grateful when a friend and loyal follower
of this blog did the second best thing to bringing me to Franconia – he brought Franconia to me. In fact, he
brought back 4 lovely bottles from the Huppendorfer brewery in Huppendorf, a
village so small it could fit comfortably onto a beer mat.

A huppy pils

To stretch the enjoyment, I have been drinking the beers one
at the time, and I shall follow this strategy of enjoyment prolongation by
reporting on them one at the time. First out was the Pils. This is a beer the
Germans seldom get spectacularly wrong (unlike most of the rest of the world),
but conversely it’s also one that is seldom very memorable. I was therefore not
surprised, but nevertheless strangely pleased, to find that this beer was good,
but not fantastic. It had a decent amount of hop character, a good balance and
contained plenty of refreshment. In summary, a promising start.

A fantastic vollbier

Next out was the Vollbier. Now those who have experienced
Franconia will nod knowingly at this point, because the Vollbier is in many
ways the region’s specialty. It’s a medium dark and quite malty, and beautifully
balanced with the hops to create a beer that satisfies every conceivable organ
in your body and probably a few you didn’t even know existed. It’s not a beer I
want to drink all the time, but whenever I get one it leaves me with exactly
the same feeling I imagine art lovers get when they visit Florence for the
first time.

A zippy zwickl

Then it was time for the Zwickl. For those unfamiliar with
this style, it’s normally an unfiltered beer that is otherwise not
dissimilar to a pils or a helles. I like Zwickl quite a lot for the same reason
I like to throw herbs and spices into all the food I cook – it’s tasty. The
unfilteredness of the beer means that a lot of taste, which the world’s big
brewers spend a lot of time and effort getting rid of, gets left in the beer
and it ends up tasting the opposite of bland, which is dnalb. So, basically a
bit like the Pils but with more hoppy spiciness on the palate.

The fourth beer is the Weizen, which I’m saving for a sunny
day. So perhaps I’ll report on that another time. For now, I am just pleased to
have managed to write another blog entry, Google knows that I haven’t been
doing much of that lately. I’ve got loads of ideas for new posts though, so
watch this space. Meanwhile, why don’t you plan your next 3-4 summer holidays
by checking out the relevant web resources for Franconia. Bamberg is a great
place to start, and should be on the itinerary of any person vaguely interested
in enjoying the world’s favourite drink. Then you can rent a bike and go bumming
around the countryside to marvel at all the lovely barley ripening in the balmy
summer wind, and whenever you come across a village that you’ve never heard of,
chances are that there will be a tiny little brewery with a nice beer garden outside
where you can quench your thirst whilst you think how good life is and how
unbelievably more complicated this sentence would be if you had to stick the
verb at the end, like Germans do. Well, nobody’s perfect.